And yes, i forgot the 2 space settlement placement rule when taking the photos. My error. I was trying to show building close together to get across the rules for how much stuff you get and broke the placement rules. I do it a couple of times in the video, all while trying to get more stuff in shot for close ups. Sorry for that
@@3MBG "Set-up, variable... *Important:* Alternatively, you can use a fully random set-up. Place 1 token on each land hex. Start at one corner of the island, and place the number tokens in random order. In such case, the tokens with the red numbers must not be next to each other. You may have to swap tokens to ensure that no red numbers are on adjacent hexes."
Not long after this video was uploaded, news broke that Klaus Teuber had passed away. It's pretty hard to overstate the importance of Catan and Klaus to the hobby and its popularity these days. But i guess heres as good a place as any to sing the games praises. And while it was never one that really grabbed me, so many people who's company i have enjoyed in the hobby came to my table via Catan. So to Klaus and Catan I owe a bunch of happy memories. Rest in Peace
I can't really, not without taking it down completely and reuploding it. And then that's a bit weird. Especially as the video was just intended to be yet another game review.
The worst part about Catan is when the same number gets rolled multiple times in a row and greatly benefits one player (which is never you of course). In seriousness, I think base Catan is ok but Cities and Knights really elevates the experience to a new level.
This video is much sadder when the designer of Catan left this world a few hours ago. I've never been a fan of his games, but he sure brought a lot of us and a lot of game makers to this hobby. RIP
Years after introducing my parents to Catan, they still always love bringing it out and yelling across the table at each other as roads are interrupted, deals are gazumped, and robbers are placed. It is true that some games you can just be relentlessly shut down, and of course there are games where certain numbers go crazy, but generally speaking there is enough there for a gamer to reliably finish top 2 through good decision-making. Thankfully they've been weaned off it a little bit, but every now and then it's the perfect game to get out, get the nephews involved, and have a good bit of family time around the table.
The best thing about this game is declaring "Wheat Monopoly!" immediately after you traded wheat. That moment will not be forgotten, trust me. (RIP Klaus Teuber, thank you for bringing so many into the hobby and for giving me a game I could play while in the spare time I had as a parent.)
Game of my childhood. Tried to convince my friends to play Settlers of Catan every game night, especially with expansions. Lost out to Risk sometimes. And overall, Bohnanza and Carcassonne hit the table way more often back then, and i still love those two. But my passion was in Settlers of Catan. Rest in Peace Klaus Teuber
The video mentions it's a game for 2-4 players, however, the game is for 3-4 players (expansion allows for 5-6 players). There are rules available, somewhere on the internet, for 2 players, and also the Catan Card Game, which is for 2 players ONLY.
I played this again recently and while it has really faded for me and doesn't hold up as well as Carcassonne its hard to think of another game that does as many things as Catan does in so accessible a way.
The first game to show, mid twenties me, that gaming had evolved from Monopoly and Risk. Like most games, with Catan a good group is key to getting peak enjoyment. Thanks 3MBG Thanks and RIP Klaus.
Didn't bring me to board games, that'd be my manky old heroquest, but Catan certainly brought me back to them! We had a flat, excess time, and about two years of great socialising over it (usually, but not always, accompanied by good games). Excellent gateway game that is occasionally ruined by someone being locked out of the board and thus having to sit around throwing dice while everyone else determines who wins.
As far as a gateway game for my kids - something for me to play with my kids - Ticket to Ride was much more successful and enjoyed. Catan never caught on with us. Personally (now or way back when), I would play it, but there were always many other games I would prefer to get to the table.
I really enjoy the participation aspect of Catan. Everyone is able to do something at most points of the game. The game does totally fall apart I'd no one bothers trading!
I'm only a few years into board games and own only(?) ~100 games, played a few dozens more probably, yet I've never played Catan nor seen anyone play this live. I must be living in some sort of bubble probably. The same goes for Agricola, another classic one. Maybe some day... Who knows.
Another interesting way to play Catan is to replace the two D6's with a D12, removing any probability advantage from the dice roll. Tends to curb snowballing and put more emphasis on careful resource management and strategy.
Im not sure i agree with that. a d12 makes the resource generation incredibly random, where as a bell curve means there is a clear race to get the best spots.
@@3MBG Well it changes what you would consider the "best spots". Having locations with a diverse set of numbers is handy, and ports are also very good. Also you have to be careful how you spend what you have, encourages a lot more trading (and a lot more clever trading). Also the robber gets moved a lot less, and development cards become much more valuable. I've played it a few times, I don't know that it's better than the normal way, but it is certainly different and interesting to try if you're someone who plays a lot of Catan.
hi can you elaborate how D12 is better than D6? isn't it all numbers on a dice roll have same probability of 1/6? and which resource snowballing it is curbing?
Correction! I love catan but it did NOT get me into the hobby: I hated catan, Pandemic get me into board gaming. I got into Catan about 15 years after that, because it's the most brutal game I have. For me, its replay-ability is second to none. You have to be happy to be miserable to enjoy the game, and for me that came a very long time down the road of getting-into-games.
The game is 2/5 on our complexity scale. It's one of the least complex games of the 400 games we have covered on the channel. It just very odd to see someone call something as straight forward and mainstream as Catan complicated.
@3MBG I'm a very kinesthetic learner, so it sounds like I probably would figure it out then, if I was learning it while playing it. But just listening to all the instructions, along with some images, confused the heck out of me and turned my brain to mush lol. I have ADHD so I'm not great at taking in a lot of info all at once - it overwhelms the ol' pre-frontal cortex and I end up feeling really stupid 🤣 To me, theoretically, the game sounds really complicated, but in reality, it's probably not 😁
Ah, i am quite the opposite. Autism spectrum, info dumping rules go straight into my brain and complex patterns aren't complex to me. Neurodiversity is a funny thing.
I feel that CATAN only turns into a fair, enjoyable boardgame after introducing the Expansion "Cities & Knights". If you play with just the core game, though, the initial ressource province distribution pretty much determines the outcome and the winner, right from the start - with everyone else, especially the not so lucky owners of "poorer" provinces having to suffer through playing along until it's finally over. - Nevertheless, Rest in Peace, Klaus Teuber! Thank you for sharing your genius with us!
Catan was originally designed to include Seafarers but that got broken out into expansion material. Cities and Knights and I would argue the event/dice deck are needed.
The Pirates and explorers expansion adds gold coins. If you don't get a resource in a turn you get 1 coin. You can exchange 2 coins for a resource of choice twice per turn That rule really reduces the amount of luck from bad rolls. And if you had a bad start you can still get those resources that you need so much The expansion itself changes a lot about the game but you can make your own coins to use
It was never a favourite of mine either. I remember my disappointment at Spiel 95 this new game with huge buzz wasn't Die Macher ++. Still I never hated it & I guess it introduced people to games that I might like? Wow looked at BGG; boy did he milk it though (good for him:))
Gammarauders. Its tongue in cheek as Gammarauders is a silly ameritrash game about giant monsters. But it does have a board of hexes numbered 2-12 and rolling 1d6 to allocate resources at the start of a turn is a core rule. I'd played a lot of gammarauders for years before Catan arrived on the scene.
@@3MBG Never heard of it. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Tipping Point talks about how certain things caught on and others didn’t, a sliding door idea, and what has to happen for something to catch. What would you say, I don’t know myself, why and how Catan made it?
@3 Minute Board Games From your videos, I typically learn about games I've never heard of, yet in this one it's one of the oldest games in the genre, as are the examples of other games one might like.
Ah, i get you. Yeah, its not unheard of for me to do older games like this. I did Chess in about 3 minutes a while back :) The plan is to, very rarely, just add in an older game like this, modern classics for want of a better term. Ticket to ride will be next, but not for a few months.
@@3MBG yes but lots of popular games dont have trading and are even less interactive than NT Catan. Dont knock it just because it offers a trading option
Player interaction is big for me. If i want to play a multiplayer solitaire there are far better options out there for me than house ruled Catan. As i said, if that's your idea of fun, that's fine.
There are just so many other better games out there these days. This one has passed its use by date IMO. For the 'non-gamer' this title is popular. For the gamers, well, they have moved on.
It's never been one of my personal favs, I almost grudgingly own a copy. But its hard to deny its impact on the hobby to bring people in. And compared to the likes of monopoly, its head and shoulders above them
Um, no, not all gamers have moved on. That "so many other better games" argument always annoys me. So what? With the right group, I'm always happy to play Catan over any number of what some people consider "better" games. I'll never get rid of my copy and am happy to have it, even if it doesn't get played that often.
There is no doubt that this, with his other titles, have made a significant contribution toward popularising the games hobby it is always very sad to read such news.
I'm just here to say that Power Grid is out-dated and should reflect the current global energy market where renewables are out pricing nuclear and coal. Unless there is a strategy to where one can win with renewables?
@@3MBG Had similar thought just now. Though you have a wide variety of different maps you play on such as the American one which suggest a wider perfective. But I've been trying to see if they explicitly say that somewhere? In any case this was an interesting aside after researching the competitiveness of renewables vs nuclear and coal the last year. Will have to read up further on this.
And yes, i forgot the 2 space settlement placement rule when taking the photos. My error. I was trying to show building close together to get across the rules for how much stuff you get and broke the placement rules. I do it a couple of times in the video, all while trying to get more stuff in shot for close ups. Sorry for that
Yeah I bet you will get many comments about that. Instantly noticeable.
Thorough job explaining though.
Also the sixes/eights cannot be next to other sixes/eights on the board thing 🙂
100% random setup im pretty sure you can do that Graeme, if you want to play 100% random. Random setups are at player discretion
@@3MBG "Set-up, variable...
*Important:* Alternatively, you can use a fully random set-up. Place 1 token on each land hex. Start at one corner of the island, and place the number tokens in random order. In such case, the tokens with the red numbers must not be next to each other. You may have to swap tokens to ensure that no red numbers are on adjacent hexes."
Even in the fully random setup it says that two red numbers must not be next to each other and says to switch one with a black number to fix it.
Not long after this video was uploaded, news broke that Klaus Teuber had passed away. It's pretty hard to overstate the importance of Catan and Klaus to the hobby and its popularity these days. But i guess heres as good a place as any to sing the games praises. And while it was never one that really grabbed me, so many people who's company i have enjoyed in the hobby came to my table via Catan. So to Klaus and Catan I owe a bunch of happy memories.
Rest in Peace
I wonder if you're going to add an in Memoriam to the beginning of the video
I can't really, not without taking it down completely and reuploding it. And then that's a bit weird. Especially as the video was just intended to be yet another game review.
@@3MBG why don't you make an extra time video on why Catan influenced the board game space, your best memories of the game and yours eulogies?
The worst part about Catan is when the same number gets rolled multiple times in a row and greatly benefits one player (which is never you of course).
In seriousness, I think base Catan is ok but Cities and Knights really elevates the experience to a new level.
This video is much sadder when the designer of Catan left this world a few hours ago. I've never been a fan of his games, but he sure brought a lot of us and a lot of game makers to this hobby. RIP
Years after introducing my parents to Catan, they still always love bringing it out and yelling across the table at each other as roads are interrupted, deals are gazumped, and robbers are placed. It is true that some games you can just be relentlessly shut down, and of course there are games where certain numbers go crazy, but generally speaking there is enough there for a gamer to reliably finish top 2 through good decision-making.
Thankfully they've been weaned off it a little bit, but every now and then it's the perfect game to get out, get the nephews involved, and have a good bit of family time around the table.
The best thing about this game is declaring "Wheat Monopoly!" immediately after you traded wheat. That moment will not be forgotten, trust me. (RIP Klaus Teuber, thank you for bringing so many into the hobby and for giving me a game I could play while in the spare time I had as a parent.)
Game of my childhood. Tried to convince my friends to play Settlers of Catan every game night, especially with expansions. Lost out to Risk sometimes. And overall, Bohnanza and Carcassonne hit the table way more often back then, and i still love those two. But my passion was in Settlers of Catan. Rest in Peace Klaus Teuber
The video mentions it's a game for 2-4 players, however, the game is for 3-4 players (expansion allows for 5-6 players). There are rules available, somewhere on the internet, for 2 players, and also the Catan Card Game, which is for 2 players ONLY.
I played this again recently and while it has really faded for me and doesn't hold up as well as Carcassonne its hard to think of another game that does as many things as Catan does in so accessible a way.
RIP Klaus Teuber. What an oddly synchronous and inadvertently sad time to post this video! Only a few hours before his passing!
The video was posted to patreon hours before he passed, but i knew when i made it a public video. Just very weird timing indeed.
The first game to show, mid twenties me, that gaming had evolved from Monopoly and Risk. Like most games, with Catan a good group is key to getting peak enjoyment. Thanks 3MBG
Thanks and RIP Klaus.
Didn't bring me to board games, that'd be my manky old heroquest, but Catan certainly brought me back to them!
We had a flat, excess time, and about two years of great socialising over it (usually, but not always, accompanied by good games). Excellent gateway game that is occasionally ruined by someone being locked out of the board and thus having to sit around throwing dice while everyone else determines who wins.
Played the junior version with my family. Never felt the urge to play the full version.
Still love this game. RIP Klaus Teuber!
1:13 That blue settlement can't be one road away from other settlements!
See pinned comment, an error where i was trying to make a rules point by framing the towns all close for the photo and forgot thats illegal placement.
RIP Klaus Teuber. Creator of this game I had never heard of before today. Died April 1st 2023.
As far as a gateway game for my kids - something for me to play with my kids - Ticket to Ride was much more successful and enjoyed. Catan never caught on with us. Personally (now or way back when), I would play it, but there were always many other games I would prefer to get to the table.
Rest in peace Klaus
I really enjoy the participation aspect of Catan. Everyone is able to do something at most points of the game.
The game does totally fall apart I'd no one bothers trading!
The worst time i had with this game was 3 player, with a couple, who only traded with each other. It was not a fun experience
@@3MBGLOL
I've always liked board games but Settlers of Catan, Killer Bunnies, and Munchkin were the first 3 games that really kicked off my dive into the hobby
What a weird time for this to be posted. RIP Klaus Teuber
Purely coincidental, it was out to my patrons well before the news broke.
R.I.P.
I'm only a few years into board games and own only(?) ~100 games, played a few dozens more probably, yet I've never played Catan nor seen anyone play this live. I must be living in some sort of bubble probably. The same goes for Agricola, another classic one. Maybe some day... Who knows.
You get the wood you win the game - Mark Banano
Another interesting way to play Catan is to replace the two D6's with a D12, removing any probability advantage from the dice roll. Tends to curb snowballing and put more emphasis on careful resource management and strategy.
Im not sure i agree with that. a d12 makes the resource generation incredibly random, where as a bell curve means there is a clear race to get the best spots.
@@3MBG Well it changes what you would consider the "best spots". Having locations with a diverse set of numbers is handy, and ports are also very good. Also you have to be careful how you spend what you have, encourages a lot more trading (and a lot more clever trading). Also the robber gets moved a lot less, and development cards become much more valuable. I've played it a few times, I don't know that it's better than the normal way, but it is certainly different and interesting to try if you're someone who plays a lot of Catan.
hi can you elaborate how D12 is better than D6? isn't it all numbers on a dice roll have same probability of 1/6? and which resource snowballing it is curbing?
I don’t know how to play this game so I am watching it
Catan was necessary but has since been completely replaced by Concordia.
Two very different games in my mind.
Correction! I love catan but it did NOT get me into the hobby: I hated catan, Pandemic get me into board gaming. I got into Catan about 15 years after that, because it's the most brutal game I have. For me, its replay-ability is second to none. You have to be happy to be miserable to enjoy the game, and for me that came a very long time down the road of getting-into-games.
This game looks SO complicated!
Bless.
@3MBG I can't tell if your comment is patronising or sarcastic 🤔
The game is 2/5 on our complexity scale. It's one of the least complex games of the 400 games we have covered on the channel. It just very odd to see someone call something as straight forward and mainstream as Catan complicated.
@3MBG I'm a very kinesthetic learner, so it sounds like I probably would figure it out then, if I was learning it while playing it.
But just listening to all the instructions, along with some images, confused the heck out of me and turned my brain to mush lol.
I have ADHD so I'm not great at taking in a lot of info all at once - it overwhelms the ol' pre-frontal cortex and I end up feeling really stupid 🤣
To me, theoretically, the game sounds really complicated, but in reality, it's probably not 😁
Ah, i am quite the opposite. Autism spectrum, info dumping rules go straight into my brain and complex patterns aren't complex to me. Neurodiversity is a funny thing.
I feel that CATAN only turns into a fair, enjoyable boardgame after introducing the Expansion "Cities & Knights".
If you play with just the core game, though, the initial ressource province distribution pretty much determines the outcome and the winner, right from the start - with everyone else, especially the not so lucky owners of "poorer" provinces having to suffer through playing along until it's finally over.
-
Nevertheless, Rest in Peace, Klaus Teuber! Thank you for sharing your genius with us!
Catan was originally designed to include Seafarers but that got broken out into expansion material. Cities and Knights and I would argue the event/dice deck are needed.
The Pirates and explorers expansion adds gold coins.
If you don't get a resource in a turn you get 1 coin. You can exchange 2 coins for a resource of choice twice per turn
That rule really reduces the amount of luck from bad rolls. And if you had a bad start you can still get those resources that you need so much
The expansion itself changes a lot about the game but you can make your own coins to use
😊
It was never a favourite of mine either. I remember my disappointment at Spiel 95 this new game with huge buzz wasn't Die Macher ++.
Still I never hated it & I guess it introduced people to games that I might like?
Wow looked at BGG; boy did he milk it though (good for him:))
Ha, yes. That's what happens when you have a mega hit. Ticket to ride and Pandemic are no different, at least a dozen version of those two.
What was the game mentioned at the end which Catan owes a big thanks to?
Gammarauders. Its tongue in cheek as Gammarauders is a silly ameritrash game about giant monsters. But it does have a board of hexes numbered 2-12 and rolling 1d6 to allocate resources at the start of a turn is a core rule. I'd played a lot of gammarauders for years before Catan arrived on the scene.
@@3MBG Never heard of it. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Tipping Point talks about how certain things caught on and others didn’t, a sliding door idea, and what has to happen for something to catch. What would you say, I don’t know myself, why and how Catan made it?
This almost feels like an intentional throwback, like pretending that it's twenty years ago.
I'm not sure what you mean?
@3 Minute Board Games From your videos, I typically learn about games I've never heard of, yet in this one it's one of the oldest games in the genre, as are the examples of other games one might like.
That's not bad or wrong, just different
Ah, i get you. Yeah, its not unheard of for me to do older games like this. I did Chess in about 3 minutes a while back :) The plan is to, very rarely, just add in an older game like this, modern classics for want of a better term. Ticket to ride will be next, but not for a few months.
Especially today, given the timing of the video coming out just after Klaus passed away.
NT RR7 and now it's a fair game
That kinda guts all the player interaction, but sure, if that's your idea of fun. For anyone else, that's no trading and the robber doesn't steal
@@3MBG yes but lots of popular games dont have trading and are even less interactive than NT Catan. Dont knock it just because it offers a trading option
Player interaction is big for me. If i want to play a multiplayer solitaire there are far better options out there for me than house ruled Catan. As i said, if that's your idea of fun, that's fine.
@@3MBG No, that's my point. Even with NT, Catan has more interaction than most new games. Play it 'solitaire' and you will lose.
There are just so many other better games out there these days. This one has passed its use by date IMO. For the 'non-gamer' this title is popular. For the gamers, well, they have moved on.
It's never been one of my personal favs, I almost grudgingly own a copy. But its hard to deny its impact on the hobby to bring people in. And compared to the likes of monopoly, its head and shoulders above them
@@3MBG Oh I agree. It is hugely better than that piece of @#&p!
Um, no, not all gamers have moved on. That "so many other better games" argument always annoys me. So what? With the right group, I'm always happy to play Catan over any number of what some people consider "better" games. I'll never get rid of my copy and am happy to have it, even if it doesn't get played that often.
There is no doubt that this, with his other titles, have made a significant contribution toward popularising the games hobby it is always very sad to read such news.
Aaah why did you place the settlements illegally at 1:00 settlements have to be 2 roadlengths apart
See pinned comment
I'm just here to say that Power Grid is out-dated and should reflect the current global energy market where renewables are out pricing nuclear and coal. Unless there is a strategy to where one can win with renewables?
I'm reasonably sure Power Grid is not intended to show current power needs and was always about post war Germany and its needs
@@3MBG Had similar thought just now. Though you have a wide variety of different maps you play on such as the American one which suggest a wider perfective. But I've been trying to see if they explicitly say that somewhere? In any case this was an interesting aside after researching the competitiveness of renewables vs nuclear and coal the last year. Will have to read up further on this.